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A study in mice shows that manipulating the activity of the cortical fields associated with sweet and bitter tastes mediates the perception of taste and drives associated behaviours.
By vesicular secretion ofD-serine, astrocytes in the hippocampal neurogenic niche regulate dendritic maturation, spine formation and synapse formation of adult-born hippocampal neurons.
Cell surface molecule diversification has been proposed to confer specific surface identities on neuronal cell types, enabling the precise pattern of connectivity that is observed between CNS neurons. In this Review, de Wit and Ghosh explore the role of various protein superfamilies in the specification of such connectivity.
Tau is a microtubule-stabilizing protein that aggregates in several neurodegenerative diseases. In this Review, Wang and Mandelkow describe the structure, expression and post-translational modifications of tau, and the functions of this protein in health and in disease.
Recent years have seen several important advances in the tools available to interrogate the function of specific genes. Here, Heidenreich and Zhang describe the advantages of the precise and efficient CRISPR–Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat–CRISPR-associated protein) system for gene editing and outline how this approach may benefit research into nervous system function and disease.
Rodents spend a large proportion of their waking time engaged in self-grooming behaviour. In this Review, Kalueff and colleagues describe the characteristics and underlying neural circuitry of rodent self-grooming, and discuss its use as a measure of repetitive behaviour in models of psychiatric disease.
The evolution of complex nervous systems is not well understood. In this Opinion article, Arendt and colleagues discuss comparative gene-expression data that suggest that the bilaterian brain emerged from the integration of distinct integrative centres present on opposite sides of a nerve net.
